Taco Cabana research chef develops street foods

Walter "Smokey" Waters, Corporate Chef for Taco Cabana, sits with one of his creations, the new Chipotle Corn Street Tacos, at the newest Taco Cabana restaurant at I-10 West and Ralph Fair Road on Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

Walter "Smokey" Waters, Corporate Chef for Taco Cabana, sits with one of his creations, the new Chipotle Corn Street Tacos, at the newest Taco Cabana restaurant at I-10 West and Ralph Fair Road on Wednesday,

Walter "Smokey" Waters, Corporate Chef for Taco Cabana, sits with one of his creations, the new Chipotle Corn Street Tacos, at the newest Taco Cabana restaurant at I-10 West and Ralph Fair Road on Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

Walter "Smokey" Waters, Corporate Chef for Taco Cabana, sits with one of his creations, the new Chipotle Corn Street Tacos, at the newest Taco Cabana restaurant at I-10 West and Ralph Fair Road on Wednesday,

Now in his fifth year as the head research and development chef for Taco Cabana's 156 outlets, Waters works to bring authentic Mexican food to the chain's kitchens to keep it in touch with its roots.

“I'm trying to find the sweet spot ... to please everyone,” Waters says. “As a chef, you want to innovate, but you have to keep it simple so you don't lose the authenticity of the food you are saying is Mexican.”

Waters, who is based in San Antonio and frequently travels to Mexico, must also blend this authentic, street-vendor feel with the practicality of working in a fast-food environment, as in the restaurant's newest menu addition, Chipotle Corn Street Tacos.

“In Mexico, they grill the corn for their tacos over an open flame right there on the street,” says Waters. “Can you imagine the mess using corn on the cob would make back there (in the kitchen)? It's got to be simple, and it's got to be produced consistently.”

To make the food of the streets more practical, especially for Taco Cabana chefs with less experience, Waters often has to innovate by substitution, rather than addition.

“A lot of places, they'll just throw more and more ingredients into a dish until it isn't really the same food anymore,” says Waters. “So, as an example, for our new Corn Street Tacos, we caramelize and steam the corn to simulate that off-the-cob taste, and we even substituted the mayo these street vendors were using with Cotija cheese.”

Yet finding the right balance in the test kitchen isn't always a success for Waters.

“Ninety percent of my dishes never make it to the menu,” he says. “When I first started, I was just trying to make off-the-wall items — you know, a nacho or burger taco — but now the ones that stick are the ones with simple flavors.”

Of all the dishes that never made it onto a Taco Cabana plate, Waters wishes patrons could have tasted his shrimp flautas.

“Taco Cabana makes a shrimp Tampico, so we combined it with an orange, chile-colored tortilla,” says Waters. “It tested well, but it was just too hard to make compared to the regular shrimp quesadilla.”

When one of the research team's dishes makes it onto the menu, Waters says he feels a sense of pride.

“It's cool watching the 10 o'clock news and seeing your food come on a commercial,” he says. “Other people may not care, but that's me — you see a little bit of yourself in that commercial.”

Waters says that innovation in the food industry is too often credited to upscale restaurants and cooking schools.

“When (the research and development) team heads down to Mexico, we often find that the most progressive areas in terms of food are on the outskirts of places like Mexico City,” he says. “(Chefs) need to learn in the field as well.”

“It's detective work,” he says. “We have to figure out what's hot ... some of it's kind of guesswork — you throw something against the wall, see what sticks — some of it's luck.”

Waters says that foods fluctuate in popularity, so just because restaurants aren't offering a particular meat or spice doesn't mean it won't be back on the menu in the future.

“We romanticize things like chipotle every five to six years, and so it makes a comeback,” he says.

Authentic food isn't the only thing the research team from Taco Cabana has brought back from the Mexico City outskirts.

“They are re-doing the architecture in all the restaurants as well,” Waters says. “We got to see real, Mexican architecture and (Taco Cabana) is going to change in that way, too.”

Waters' connections with food range from the practical — he is a 2003 graduate of the Art Institute of Houston's culinary school — to the high-tech; he takes food science classes at Kansas State. Yet he says his deepest relation to food is a historical one; Waters wants to understand how Mexican fare has evolved.

“It's a big contrast ... seeing people cooking downtown with (molecular gastronomy) and seeing people on the streets using the old way, grilling with stones and charcoal.”

Waters sees no problem with using eclectic ingredients or cooking methods, as long as one preserves the original feel of the dish.

“People have always loved Mexican food because it is very comforting ... it's very homey,” he says. “When you combine that with how close (the United States) is to Mexico, you have this perfect storm (of preserving traditional Mexican food).”

Regardless of its variations, Waters finds a common ingredient at the core of cuisine.

“We all eat the same proteins, the same nutrients,” he says. “With each culture ... we just tweak it, we make it our own.”